A recent significant advancement in the field of gas dynamics is the development of coherent jet technology which produces a laser-like jet of gas which can travel a long distance while still retaining substantially all of its initial velocity and with very little increase to its jet diameter. One very important commercial use of coherent jet technology is for the introduction of gas into liquid, such as molten metal, whereby the gas lance may be spaced a large distance from the surface of the liquid, enabling safer operation as well as more efficient operation because much more of the gas penetrates into the liquid than is possible with conventional practice where much of the gas deflects off the surface of the liquid and does not enter the liquid.
It is sometimes desirable to have both a coherent gas jet and a turbulent gas jet in an industrial operation. For example, in steelmaking it is sometimes desirable to use a coherent gas jet to inject gas into molten metal for stirring purposes while using one or more turbulent gas jets for combustion and/or decarburization purposes. A turbulent gas jet may be disruptive to another gas jet if they travel close to one another. With existing technology, industrial operations which desire using simultaneously both coherent and turbulent gas jets, require the use of two separate gas delivery systems which is expensive.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a system which can effectively provide both a coherent gas jet and a turbulent gas jet proximate to one another into an injection volume.